I had a student ask a question about disinfectant. Knowing that Hiv "dies" very quickly outside the body, is there really any reason to use a disinfectant after a lengthy time period? Will the disinfectant do anything more to the virus that the environment won't do on its own? (In terms of the HIV virus)

Well, the HIV Envelope is very quickly destroyed as you said outside the human body unless there is a liquid so if there is much liquid on the surface then it could survive for a long time especially when the liquid is Blood, body fluids or Polyethylene Gycol, any of which can make the HIV Virus survive for some time after leaving the human body or a test tube. I would always suggest to disinfect anything that has touched any sort of lethal infectious agent maybe that being paranoia from being around so many. I always disinfect any surface or objects that has had any contact with these sorts of agents even if there is no real cause to be worried like in the case of HIV on a solid surface with just air around it, but in reality I would suggest ALWAYS disinfect.

Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded.-26 Dimensional Quadratic Super String Theory